April Madness 2020

​i.
​
if i was Eurydice.
​
​ii.
​
​Orpheus knew we'd never go to space.
​It was in the way he wanted to fly.
​Bony arms sprawled to a six foot reach,
​he'd sprint circles around his father's grave
​to kick up a storm greater than Nevada
​has ever seen. A Midwestern tornado
​would lift him out the atmosphere,
​​and somewhere out there,
​​his limbs will grow ​to terrifying lengths
​to lean back down and bring me with,

​but I've already planted myself here.
​
​iii.
​
i'd never look back.
​
​iv.
​
​The alternatives I proposed,
​whenever he'd land back down,
​made our promise rings all-purpose.
​
​The dandelions we tied to our knuckles
​(doing cartwheels in the courtyard)
​could be a lasso or a noose.
​
We'd be able to drag the moon down
​and use it as coffee table decoration.
To Orpheus, everything was paperweight;
​
​He pulled orbits with his own hands.
​it didn't mean anything to him, though,
​if he couldn't see the color in space.
​
​I knew I'd be amazed by the blacks and blues
​We'd swim in for the rest of our lives.
​I just wasn't meant to be an astronaut.
​
​and under his breath, I think he knew,
​how he'd talk about what was beyond
​and only that for the time we had left.
​
​v.
​
​why did Eurydice
​
​vi.
​
Then, he met another airhead.
And then, I died my first death.
​
​vii.
​
decide to look back?
​
​viii.
​To him, it was unceremonious.
Strapped with bottle rockets,
my engines malfunctioned;
sending my limbs across the street.
​
​What nobody told me is this:

​The doors of the underworld
​look awfully like garden beds,
​
​and that I can only hear
​our final conversation
​"Do you wish I was different?"
​"You are too rooted."
dripping from the soil above.

​ix.
​
​if i am Eurydice.
​
​x.
​
​At one point, Orpheus turned back. Worms started falling from my sky.
​​He dug holes into my tomb in hopes they would find me.
​On the side of their bodies were detailed regrets,
​as if they were wearing a heart on their sleeves.
​
​Since I was gone, he didn't belong on earth.
​
​I pondered miniature rockets on the worms' backs,
​sending them up to my new beyond.
​I want him to know how tall I've grown (many sunflowers)
​and sometimes, i like to think he'd be proud of me.
​
​But to look back, so I've learned, is to die a second death.
​
​What I hear now is similar to the sound of crows.
​we used to speak whenever Orpheus spoke to the stars.
​He shouted from his launching pad, warning a distant planet
​that he was coming soon, that he was Orpheus, and
​
​"Since I am, I don't belong on this earth!"
​
​The hesitance in the crows' voices matched mine
​whenever I was rooted. Whenever I was me.
​And in my first death, I thought I had done enough.
My front yard's no longer his launching pad.
​
​To look back is to die a second death.
​What's dead is dead and always will be.
​
​xi.
​
​i will never look back.

Xenia, ohio

there’s a saltwater film
over the bodies in xenia, ohio;
shrink wrapped skin over chipping bones
contorted in weird ways
spread out across fields of corn
and debris. there’s kids
pushing strollers and pissing in paint cans
parentless and angry,
running with an urgency the world
has never known.
and though they wander, they have
nowhere to go.
the wind blows backwards a stench of decay:
our fathers and mothers
who took the fall for our existence.
the older we get, the harder it gets
and we try to move on but we can’t.
that whirring tornado runs rampid and feral
all through our minds, the badlands
and the boneyards of this town.

Buzz

Take it away,
You, ma'am, on the guitar.
Let your melodies
Ring out their truths,
Drip down my soul like
the sweetest honey.
Buzz in my ear, dear,
As long as you can spare,
For nothing stings more
Than the hollowness of silence.
May your story inspire
The blooming of my buds,
Eager to thrive in
the dawn of spring.

So we both have opposable thumbs,
jeer the raccoons.
But who is in charge now?

Do you really have to rub this in?
I ask from my window.

Then the raccoons steal my trash
and wash their hands before eating.

my socked toes tap on a fogged
windowsill, the rain thunders,
wanting to imprint pictures
on the wet concrete so the
bright-colored kids can stick
their shoes in deep cracks
and skin their knees and palms.

the pitter-patter of a bleeding
heart echoes with every intake
of air, every gaze down into
the muddied hall where smudged
red petals laid on pale kitchen
tiles in a melted array, visible
only to faded irises that see
past the copper stains and soak
in the near aroma.

between two slices of Wonderbread
a moral dilemma looks back at me
through mustard margarine eyes. it speaks
before I can slap it in the face
with beer sausage or bavarian meatloaf:
"is this for you"
proverbial fingers point
"or for them?"
proverbial fingers point again
& I am a tourniquet squeezing
the bleached cloth in my hands
until the water runs red because I am pinching
at strings, tugging for words that might hint
at answers. intrepid actions
are actually paroxysms of fear, slipping
into Ziploc bags greater than all the belongings
of that one man crouched
in the square of the door.

We wake on a misty morning.

I cannot think of a single soul
Who embodies pensiveness
Quite as well as you do.

You stare into space,
Quiet as a breath and
Distant as the moon.

But then, my gaze catches yours
And the corners of your lips
Creep towards the sun.

I avert my eyes,
Vainly trying to mask
The fondness in my grin.

Neither can I think of anyone
Who embodies deliverance
Quite as well as you do.

Silver Dreams

Silver dreams on shattered wings go flying
O'er silent frozen plains, my misty mind.
Forgotten angers, fears, and loves lie dead,
Crystal-crusted, broken on the cold ground.
Spinning madly like a leaf in a gale
I wonder why I returned to this waste
When all that awaits me are silken lies
I spun long ago to keep my heart sane.

the sky is so heavy today

weeks ago, the streets were crowded
with people shouldering words. mementos.
snapshots of a life they thought they knew.
we all strain to glimpse the shimmer of
a dawn where the sun will stay with us.

today, I tiptoed out in the silent uncertainty
of early morning. the sky was crowning and I thought
of cradling the newborn sun in my hands.
but who am I to be so arrogant? I am no Atlas,
and only fools believe they could hold up the world.

(and only fools will hope for a day
when we can see stars at noon.)

I like to imagine you dancing with stars
and sometimes, if I look closely I swear
I can see your face amung the clouds

you are gone that I understand
but you are still alive in my heart
and those memories of you
feel like they were lived yesterday
and sometimes if I look deep within
myself I see your face smiling again.

i still feel agony at the thought of you
but then i grin for joy remembering
all the love, the happiness, and thoughts we shared
and then I know-you are waiting for me in the land beyond death